After rolling out to new countries and devices without a Project Fi SIM just under a week ago, Google has made Wi-Fi Assistant even more useful. The Assistant can now connect to non-secure public networks that are connected to manually, instead of only being able to secure networks that it connects to automatically.

This solves one of those caveats mentioned in the post last week. Without this functionality, WiFi Assistant could only secure a network if it identified it was open and could connect automatically, which is by no means certain. However, as of Play services 9.6, if you're hunting for open WiFi networks and connect manually, Assistant will now offer to secure it with the VPN, meaning you can browse the web, check emails, stream music, or anything else without worrying if your connection is going to be compromised.

CloudMagic has long been one of the most popular third-party email applications on Android. Today, the developers are really testing the loyalty of their users by changing the name and payment model of the app. It's now called Newton Mail, and it will cost you $49.99 per year after an initial 14-day trial. Thus far, people do not seem pleased with the change.

Audiobooks are a great way to 'read' when you're driving, cooking, or doing some other activity in which you want listen to something that isn't your favorite musical act. Good thing, then, that Audible is offering free streaming audio books and Channels to Amazon Prime members as part of the 'Prime Benefits' scheme.

The number of audiobooks is upwards of fifty, with the selection changing every so often, so there'll likely be something in that list for even the most picky of readers. In addition, Amazon is offering Audible's newest feature, Channels, to Prime customers, which includes things like ad-free podcasts, comedy shows, non-fiction, and narrated articles from some of the world's biggest and most well-known publishers.

The popular calendar app Sunrise was supposed to shut down permanently yesterday, but that didn't happen. Microsoft now says it has decided to hold off on killing Sunrise while it works to integrate more Sunrise features into the Outlook app. That doesn't mean Sunrise is alive and well, but it's not dead at least.

Microsoft has announced a series of upgrades to the calendar portion of the mobile version of Outlook. These are mostly borrowed features from the now-defunct Sunrise Calendar, which Microsoft acquired over 18 months ago.

I'll admit, YouTube has added some strange features lately, and at first glance this seemed like yet another useless addition. Starting with a few select channels, a new 'Community' tab will appear on the channel's profile, both on mobile apps and the desktop site. This essentially works like a social feed for the channel, allowing content creators to share text, images, GIFs, livestreams, and more straight through the YouTube app. You can even choose to receive push notifications for Community posts.

tinyCam Monitor is probably the most feature-packed remote surveillance app on the Play Store. Almost everything you could imagine is here - two-way audio for select cameras, SSL support, MP4 video recording, Google Cast and Android TV support, and even a built-in web server. Version 7.0 of tinyCam has just been released, and to celebrate, the Pro version is 50% off until September 20.

SoundHound is a bit like Shazam, but on steroids. If it wasn't for Shazam's integration with OK Google, SoundHound would be the only music identification app I have on my phone, because it doesn't just do searches of music playing around you, it can also recognize songs you sing or hum. It works more often than you'd think, even with a couple of missed lyrics, out of tune notes, and even half-accurate hums.

SoundHound also has the benefit of the Hound voice assistant, which means that you can ask it to identify a song, add it to your Spotify playlist, get information about artists and releases, and more without touching a single button.

Back in May, Cody unveiled strings in the Google Cast app version 1.15 that pointed to an upcoming "Chromecast Preview Program." It was clear from the code that the app would start offering an opt-in option for users to test new versions of the Chromecast firmware before they're released to the public. But for months, the Preview Program was nowhere to be found in the app.

In the last couple of days, we've received a couple of tips from users telling us that the option has now shown up for them inside the Google Cast app. And now it's finally been officially announced by the Google Cast team.

There are some missing features in Android and some of Google's apps that are simply incomprehensible. Speed limits are one of them. In countries where speed limits are enforceable by the law and mandatory to respect (ie not here in Lebanon), it's quite unfathomable to me that you would be using a routing and navigation app that didn't show you the speed limit of each road you were taking so you could drive safely and lawfully.